Here's Why Pizza Makes You Happy, According To Science

I don’t think there’s any debate over how people feel about pizza. If you are fortunate enough to enjoy this gooey, delicious, often cheap eat, then you can fully understand that pizza easily represents a slice of heaven. Even the thought of it makes one smile. Topped with tons of cheese and veggies and pepperoni galore, there’s no denying the fact that pizza makes people happy … and now DiGiorno has the research to prove it. Turns out that eating pizza — or even seeing pizza — isn’t the peak of happiness for a pizza-lover. It’s actually the smell.

I’m sure you are dumbfounded, because how in the world could someone not be at their happiest while actually eating the pizza? Curious to the happiness brought onto others by pizza, DiGiorno decided to experiment by throwing three pizza parties. Each party was made up of eight pizza lovers and 40 hidden high resolution cameras. These cameras used facial recognition technology to capture the emotions of their guests, and identify patterns during the experiment. The defining factor? Pizza. During the parties, DiGiorno pizzas were put in the oven, then soon served to the party-people. As the pizzas cooked and soon were sliced, the cameras watched the reactions of those during the party.

The result? According to their carefully monitored data, those at the party reached their highest level of joy when smelling the pizza baking in the oven. DiGiorno level the joy by percentage points and found that the “that smells great” part of the party received 24 percentage points in joy, the highest overall joy seen throughout each party. When it came to actually seeing the pizza, the joy was at 20 percentage points. And most surprising of all, the actual eating of the pizza only resulted in 11 percentage points.

DiGiorno on YouTube

I mean, it kind of makes sense, right? Think about all of those times you drove home after grabbing a pizza and relished in that pizza smell wafting through your car. Or that exhilaration you felt when someone brought a pizza to a party or to an event, how the smell lifted your spirits simply because pizza was soon to be in your belly. The actual eating of it is monumental, of course, but the smell of it brings more joy because it means pizza will finally soon be a reality in your life.

So I’m sure you’re wondering what the point is, and why DiGiorno is the one to prove it to you. What they are trying to sell to you is your happiness — the ultimate joyful experience of pizza that you could easily be missing when you order delivery. How buying a pizza and smelling it as it bakes in the oven will bring you more happiness than the actual consuming of your pizza. I will admit that for someone who is married to a frozen pizza lover, I fully support the research and will probably continue buying frozen pizzas till the grave. Why? Because it not only will make my husband joyful, but smelling it will make me joyful as well. Win, win.